A friend recently texted me a link to a Vox article titled “Why the anti-tyranny case for the 2nd Amendment shouldn’t be dismissed so quickly,” by Dave Kopel, asking my thoughts on it. My first reaction was that I wasn’t even sure what the article was trying to argue, unless it was really just making the case implied in the headline: “Don’t ignore this, and here’s some philosophical thinking to prove it’s a legitimate line of thought.” But then it marinated, and soon I was barraging him with a text message rant.
Before I go on, let me disclaim (word?) that I am not writing this article with the intent of expressing an opinion on the right to bear arms; I’m merely responding to a particular article making a particular case about that right.I won’t try to summarize the article in detail; I’ll let you read it. But for those unfamiliar with the argument, the idea is that the 2nd Amendment exists as a check against government tyranny; if the populace is armed, we will always have the means to resist an oppressive government. And while it seems (according to this article; I make no claims to have studied up sufficiently on the history for myself) the main idea was that state-run armed militias would be armed with the purpose that they could resist an overreaching federal government, Kopel also points to the Deacons of Defense, a civil rights group active in the 1960s, as evidence that sometimes “the simple, lawful of carrying [sic] firearms for defense of self and others may be all that is needed to safeguard the exercise of other rights, such as free speech.”
My first gut reaction to the anti-tyranny argument, as a cop, is that I don’t like it on account of I’m the one that gets shot first if someone decides to start an uprising. Which shows the dangerous nature of this argument; in the absence of the state militia model (more on that in a second), who decides when the need for violent resistance has arrived? Who is a check on hotheads like the militiamen in Oregon who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge? (In Kopel’s defense, he does mention that very issue.)
If we enshrine a “right” to extralegal violence, there is by definition no system (short of brute force) to check that violence. You’d like to think the guy who decides it’s time for another revolutionary is as well-reasoned as Thomas Jefferson, but it could just as easily (or let’s be real, way more easily) be Micah X Johnson. With romantic visions of the former, we give the latter a sense of legitimacy; any tacit permission to reject the law erodes the obligation to follow the law. And besides, a true revolution will be its own source of legitimacy. The colonists didn’t need the Crown to grant them the “right” to rebel in 1776.
Now, you could get around this by saying it is the idea of a state-run militia that is what this is really about. That evades the problem of any individual deciding to start killing people because he doesn’t like the law. And in my opinion, it’s probably a little closer to what the framers had in mind (tangentially, see this article arguing that it’s really about slavery). We see a kind of modern descendant of this idea in the national guard, which in peacetime are controlled by the states. Perhaps the anti-tyranny model would envision a system in which it were incumbent upon the national guards to, if necessary, wage war against the federal government?
What this article seems to forget (or, to be fair, choose not to mention) is that there is an example of states exercising the “right” to oppose the federal government, and to take up arms to defend their freedom from government overreach. It was called the American Civil War, and, with over half a million casualties,* it remains the bloodiest war our nation has ever fought. Good idea? Really?**
All of this hypothesizing assumes some kind of tyrannical takeover of the government; some kind of American Hitler, in which congress and the courts are either powerless to check the power or are complicit in the oppression. In its purest vision it paints a picture of an America where there is no recourse under the law for the citizens; a corruption so deep as to be irresistible by normal means, yet so stark that the desire to resist is widespread. That is an extreme, worst-case example.
The thing about extreme worst-case examples is that they are not generally something that we can reasonably and feasibly prepare for. To take this into reducto ad absurdum territory, imagine carrying a full biohazard suit everywhere in case of a chemical attack. Or wearing a parachute around in case you fall off a tall building. Or tethering yourself to the ground in case gravity suddenly reverses (I think about this a lot).
More concretely: In this hypothetical dictatorship, there could presumably be tanks in the streets, yes? Should it therefore be legal for all citizens to possess anti-tank weaponry, so that we may effectively resist such an occupation?
Albert Einstein said you cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. Gandhi’s pacifism allowed for violence in extreme emergencies, but warned that energy spent preparing for that violence was energy that could have been put to better use acting nonviolently. If some madman dictator takes over the government and starts killing us all in the streets, we’ll deal with it. We don’t need to encode our ability to do so in the law.
The article assumes that armed insurrection is the best or only kind. I don’t think that has ever been true; there have been successful armed movements, but there have also been successful unarmed movements, and the latter have lower body counts. And I think the effectiveness of violent revolt is lower now than ever, with today’s military and security technology.
I’m gonna let my left-wing out a little here and say this: This idea of preparing for armed resistance against a clearly evil government seems like a diversion. Because while we puff our chests and talk a good talk about how we’ll be ready when the government comes for our guns, we’re missing a true oppression that is much more insidious. We have licensing laws that are set up to maximize state profits while trapping the poor in cycles of crime. We have congressional districts drawn to guarantee the party that drew them can stay in power. We have financial rules that allow the rich to keep on getting richer while the poor tug impotently at their own bootstraps. And maybe that’s all too liberal sounding for you, so pick your own issues. These are tyrannies advanced by legitimate governments, that cannot reasonably be opposed violently. (There’s a word for those that try: Terrorists.)
So no, I don’t really think we should be promoting an anti-tyranny argument for the 2nd Amendment. It’s an angle that misses an awful lot, and that sets us on a pretty slippery slope.
*This number includes war-related deaths from combat, accidents, disease, and imprisonment.
**A confederate history buff might argue that the bloodshed resulted not from secession, but from the Union’s violent effort to quash the rebellion, and that this is therefore not a good response to an anti-tyranny argument. Touché, but I’d argue that the consequences of one’s actions, even if they are someone else’s decision, are not irrelevant.